A New Study Has Revealed That Social Jet Lag ‘Increases The Risk of Diabetes and Heart Disease’

People who struggle to wake up early on workdays tend to reward themselves with a couple extra hours of sleep when the weekend rolls around. Experts say that extra rest may be detrimental to our health.

As per a new study a disrupted sleep schedule can increase your risk of diabetes and heart disease. Having one sleep schedule on workdays and another on off days is known as ‘social jet lag’. This social jet lag wreaks havoc with the body’s biological clock.

Waking up early on workdays – only to sleep in on your days off – is called ‘social jet lag’ since it wreaks havoc with your body’s biological clock.

Dr Patricia Wong of the University of Pittsburgh, lead author of the study, told Media Outlets: ‘Social jet lag is a habitual form of circadian misalignment, when individuals have to essentially sleep and wake at times that are out of sync from their internal, biological clock and shift back and forth in their sleep schedules due to social obligations.’

Dr Wong and her team examined a group of approximately 450 adults aged 30 to 54 years, who worked at least 25 hours a week outside the home.
The participants in the study were asked to wear devices to track their activity and sleep around the clock for seven days.
The devices recorded sleep duration, in addition to the midpoint of total sleeping time for each day – including both workdays and off days.
The study found that individuals with the biggest shift in sleep routines between workdays and days off were more likely to have health problems that are risk factors for diabetes and heart disease.
The symptoms included extra girth around the midsection and higher levels of sugars and fats in the blood.

Social jet lag is worse for the body than regular jet lag

The researchers lacked data to see if the people with more pronounced social jet lag or evening chronotypes had different circadian rhythms than others.
They also did not monitor what people ate based on time of day – which can influence many cardiometabolic risk factors.
The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.